Companies that expect people to work in an office will not compensate for commute time. Once employees gained the time which would have been spent on the commute to do other things including work & personal matters, it becomes difficult to justify sacrificing that time every day to improve "company culture".
Commuting when it isn't necessary is economically inefficient. Employees are required to pay the entirety of the cost. The only way this is likely to equalize out in favor of increased time on site is if employers start paying employees extra in some way for those days that they are required to be in the office.
I saw a discussion recently (with some C-level and at the WEF) and one said: The company "needs to earn the commute" - and explained that if the office is just another place where the desk stands in a room it's not worth it for the employees to spend time to get there.
There is nothing more illogical in modern society than commuting to an office every day. Employees waste 2 of their 16 available waking hours in the non-productive commute while incurring significant financial costs (lease/insurance/fuel/energy) in order to support this patently absurd activity. Employers waste time and energy negotiating leases, re-arranging offices, purchasing AV equipment for meeting rooms, etc., in addition to paying the likely enormously expensive lease itself. The impacts on the environment, the number of hours of human life wasted in commute, the pointless buildings and associated costs to employers as well as the public infrastructure to support it (roads, trains, busses, etc.) are all incredibly wasteful. Surely, all of this could only be justified if physical presence had a dramatic impact on productivity. Yet, we cannot tell one way or the other if it actually improves outcomes.
if companies want people back in the office they should be required to start compensating for commutes. travel time, gas / electric for vehicles, etc. I sincerely do not give a damn about "productivity" or any other corporate BS from management when they can't even put their money where their mouth is
I'd like to see a way to make employers more responsible for commute times. The location and centralization of offices, after all, are decisions of the employer. Many (most?) employees would be more than happy to work and live in the same town instead of commute, but employers don't generally give that option.
A simple mechanism might be to start classifying commuting as a form of work for hire and require compensation (perhaps at half rate?) for the work.
That's the biggest inefficiency about in-office work. Its irreplaceable time lost for the employees, the company and the society. We are needlessly hauling people from place to place to have them work at the cost of losing time and resources.
Good point. If it were customary (or required) that companies pay for time spent commuting, they'd be less thrilled about mandating return-to-office. As it is today, an employee's 2 hour commute each way doesn't cost the company, it costs his family.
Companies who mandate return to the office should pay employees for the additional commute time at their hourly rate. If this becomes too expensive then productivity gains from being in the office are apparently not worth it.
That might get more people back to the office, but still probably not the majority of them. I have a 1-2 hour commute each way to the office. I did it for three weeks while I was not staffed on a project, but as soon as I got staffed on another project I stopped going to the office.
My commute sucks, the office environment is way inferior to my home, and the lack of flexibility sucks. The only thing I looked forward to while I was commuting was trying out a new restaurant in the big city for lunch. I was practically pulling my hair out of boredom the last two hours every day (had work I could and did somewhat do, but I could no longer focus on it because I was so sick of the office).
Them giving me my own office at work wouldn't change anything.
Not germane to this case, but I've recently started to wonder why employers aren't more responsible for commute times. There aren't really incentives to situate places of employment in affordable neighborhoods.
Long commute times end up being a regressive drain on the time of employees, and employers bear no responsibility to alleviate the problem though they are complicit in its creation.
Absolutely. Here’s a suggestion for employers: if you want the employees back in the office then you should pay them for the time they spend commuting. What? That’s too expensive? But didn’t you say that employees are more productive in the office? Then you’re ahead by the end of the day. Oh you can’t quantify the benefit so you can’t justify the cost? Hmmm… Have a think about what you’ve just said.
Requiring large US employers to compensate on-site office workers in full for their commuting costs would be one way of discouraging long commutes, as laid out by the IRS' Publication 463 ( https://www.irs.gov/publications/p463 ). If they want employees in the office so badly, let them assume the full cost of transportation & food/beverages.
That would only be a starting point, though. Because as others have already pointed out, employers still aren't compensating on-site employees for the time they spend commuting -OR- the time wasted preparing for the commute. The average one-way commute time in the US is just under 30 minutes. But in order to get to work at 9:00am, I used to have to wake up at 7:30am. That's an extra 1.5hrs per day, on top of the 1hrs spent commuting.
Finally, there's the human cost associated with working in the office. I didn't have time to help my kid get ready for school; he had to take the bus, which (yep) costs more money than if I could just drive him. When I got home, I usually missed dinner with my wife & kid. And I'd rarely have time to take care of all the daily chores: laundry, dishes, grocery shopping. Which means that once the weekend finally does arrive, I have to spend my free time working to take care of those remaining chores.
Now that I work from home, I can roll out of bed, drive my son to school, shower, get coffee, & show up to work at 9:00am every day. I can attend non-participant meetings while also doing laundry or dishes, while wearing a wireless headset. My cat spends part of his days in my office, which makes the work days feel less like work. I can grab a late lunch, pickup my son from school, & be home in same time it'd normally take me to get lunch downtown. I can make my own lunch at home, too, which is usually healthier & costs way less than eating near the office. When I'm done at work, I can actually have dinner with my family now. And when the week is over, I can actually spend most of my free time doing stuff I want to do, besides chores.
Honestly, I'm not convinced that employers could ever fairly compensate workers for what it costs us to commute. But forcing them to pay some of that price, instead of placing the majority of that burden on workers' shoulders, would be a start.
If companies are going to force people to be in the office, then the government should mandate that commute time is included in office hours.
That means if you want me in the office, I will leave my house at 9AM, if you want me to be close to the office, then increase my pay and I will move closer.
Very neat idea. I think if employers were required to realize economic impacts of commutes they’d be a lot more open and judicious about who they require to come in to the office. Being able to effectively price in the cost of the commute and potentially saving money via tax credits or something is cool.
On the other hand this presents a bit of a problem for, say, Boeing or Honda or Caterpillar who require workers to physically be present. I guess you could argue well then they should figure it out, but that probably results in private transit infrastructure and company towns and those probably aren’t a good path either.
One thing that kind of sits in the back of my mind is that you can effectively create a rat race about going to the office since ostensibly the C-suite team will have the company pay for their commute and then so on and so on as more people demand the company privilege of being able to go to the office.
I get what you are saying. But for some folks even few days per week of avoiding commute hell and general dreariness of office is better than everyday at workplace. I'd be happy if my employer allows that.
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